By Sam Macrory - 15th February 2011
On Friday the judge passed his verdict.
Yesterday afternoon, came the turn of the hastily assembled jury. Prosecuting was Andy Burnham, the shadow education secretary.
In the dock was Michael Gove. For a man fresh from Friday's judicial wrist-slapping, he looked remarkably calm.
But then he has to be. Gove’s nine months as education secretary might best be diplomatically described as 'incident-packed.'
And while Gove is witty, engaging, and better-mannered than most politicians of his generation, he can also be too clever by half - because he is.
That makes the Labour front bench furious. They think that Gove, the union hack-turned journalist-turned dinner party regular at the Camerons' salon-turned MP, is in the political game because he's so very good at it. Which is no bad reason, if you think about it.
Gove leaves the Labour masses baffled. He confuses them by heaping praise on Tony Blair, yet he annoys them with his membership to the Cameroonian inner circle.
He angers them with his verbose displays of self-confidence in the Commons, but he soothes them with his achingly polite answers.
But as the unfortunate headlines stack up, he unavoidably becomes a targeted scalp. Across the Despatch Box, the Labour benches were twitching with anticipation. Burnham was joined by Ed Balls, the former education secretary taking time out from shadow chancellor duties to participate in the baiting, a sport at which he bows to no-one.
Sitting with them was a new arrival, Toby Perkins. His burly physique and fixed stare matches Balls’ own, with the pair providing an intimidating duo for the rather more delicate-looking Gove.
The effect was slightly undone by the decision of the entire male contingent on the Labour front bench – including Hilary Benn and Douglas Alexander – to sport identical pale blue shirts and red ties. Ed Miliband’s leadership of the party has clearly hit new levels of control: even Alastair Campbell’s iron-grip did not enforce a school uniform for party spokesmen.
Facing the colour-coordinated ranks, Gove adopted his familiar butter-wouldn’t melt default expression. Friday’s judicial review determined that Gove had failed to consult fully over six of the many Building Schools for the Future projects which he closed last year, with the judge declaring that Gove’s decision had been an "abuse of power."
That sounded serious, but following an urgent question from the no-nonsense John Cryer, Gove happily skipped his way through an answer. His reply suggested that he was anything but worried. In fact it suggested that the judge had been on Gove's side all along. Balls shook his head, Burnham laughed incredulously, Cryer looked fed up.
"Not one word of apology," Burnham replied, before listing his charges against Gove. "Defective decision-making" and "fresh doubts about competence" were designed to wound, and then Burnham settled on his damning conclusion. Gove, he said was a "repeat offender dragged here yet again…isn’t he in the last chance saloon?" Gove didn't rise to the bait, with his approach was unsettlingly polite throughout.
Was he acting like a man who says "the play was a success, but the audience a failure" as Labour's John Speller nicely put it?
He cranked up the false flattery. Is he acting like a 'secretary of state that is not fit for purpose', as Stella Creasy, another Labour MP shouted enthusiastically? Not at all, Gove replied with a flourish.
Creasy wasn't impressed, but more than once a Labour MP could be spotted nodding along to Gove's measured answers, which each time was a rewording of his initial reply to Cryer. It was "deeply regrettable" to shut down building projects, but there really wasn't anything else he could do.
Gove saved his bile for one man. Those who promised a new wave of school-building projects before the election should, he declared in hushed tones to demonstrate seriousness, "look into their conscience."
Ed Balls, for whom the accusation was directed, looked right back at Gove and muttered something which was unlikely to be friendly. "I believe they should reflect on their time in office," Gove added. It was a bit pompous, a touch imperious, but also, given his mastery of the previous half hour, probably richly deserved.
And it's why Balls dislikes him so much. He and his colleagues would love to see Gove squirm, but yesterday, even with that judicial verdict hanging over him, he barely flinched. Gove is worryingly accomplished at this part of his job. And if you believe him, the judge thinks he's not bad at the rest of it either. The Last Chance Saloon remains empty for now.
Sam Macrory is political editor of The House Magazine.
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